“School syllabus is more than that of for BA and B.Com courses. Everything has been put in the syllabus. This needs to be reduced by half so that students get time for various other activities that enable all round development of students and make them better human beings,” the minister said.

The minister further said that students need to be given full freedom at the stage of development of cognitive skills and reducing of the school syllabus will help them in a big way.

“At the stage of development of cognitive skills, students need to be given full freedom. I have asked NCERT to reduce school syllabus by half and it will be made effective from the academic session of 2019,” he added.

As part of major reforms to improve the quality of school education and learning outcomes in the country, the HRD minister said that examinations and detention will be introduced for classes 5 and 10 and a bill will be introduced in the Parliament in this regard.

“Examinations and detention will be introduced for classes 5 and 10 and a Bill in this regard will be introduced in the Parliament in the next part of the current Budget session and will be passed since almost all the states are in favour of this reform,” the minister said.

The minister said that there is no competition without examination and there should be an element of completion among students for better learning outcomes.

“Without examination, there is no competition and no target,” the minister said, adding, “There must be an element of competition for better outcomes.”

Talking about detention policy to be introduced in schools, he said that if a student fails in March, he will get another chance in May but if he fails both the times, then only there will be detention.

“If a student fails in March, he will get another chance in May. If student fails both the times, then only there will be detention,” he said, adding, “We will introduce a Bill in this regard and confident of getting it passed since 25 states have supported this reform”.

The minister also stated that poor quality of teachers is also resulting in poor learning outcomes.

“Basic task of teachers is to assess the strengths and weaknesses of students and mentor them accordingly,” he said, adding, “Under Right to Education, over 20 lakh teachers were to be trained by 2015 but only five lakh teachers were covered.”

“Over 14 lakh teachers are now being trained for skill upgradation and this should lead to better results,” he added.